The Checklist: The Master (S1 Ep4) “Hostages”
The ninja craze of the 1980’s was in full swing when The Master first hit the air on January 20, 1984 as a mid-season replacement on NBC.
The show starred action legend, Lee Van Cleef. Van Cleef played John Peter McAllister, an American who opted to stay in Japan after World War II and while living there learned the ways of the ninja. But when McAllister finds out that he has a daughter he never knew about, he decides to return to the United States to find her. McCallister gets some help from a young drifter named Max Keller (Timothy Van Patten), who becomes a pupil of McAllister.
It should be noted that McAllister’s decision to leave his ninja clan is seen as the ultimate sign of disrespect, so McAllister is marked for death and the man tasked with killing McAllister is named Okasa. Okasa was played by Shô Kosugi, who was a major player in the ninja craze thanks to his starring roles in the Cannon produced Enter the Ninja and Revenge of the Ninja. So it only made sense that if you were going to produce a live action television series with a ninja theme that Kosugi should be a part of it.
Despite having a solid premise from creator Michael Sloan (who would go on to create The Equalizer), the ninja element that was hot at the time and legit action stars like Van Cleef and Kosugi, The Master only lasted 13 episodes.
In this edition of The Checklist, I will put the fourth episode of the series entitled “Hostages” to The Checklist test and possibly shed some light on why The Master didn’t have a longer run.
- Episode Synopsis: Master and apprentice are caught up in the terrorist abduction of an influential senator and his rambling daughter.
#1- Did the show have a kick ass opening?
If you wanted your action adventure series to work in the 1980’s you better be damn sure you had an opening that fans were going to love. The Master delivered here and then some. First and foremost is the theme music composed by Bill Conti himself. Then there’s the fact that a shuriken graphic is used. The action clips include ninjas, a flipping car, a defenestration and even an airplane crashing through a hangar door! 1/1
#2- Were there any notable guest stars?
Action adventure series like The Master need a steady stream of bad guys and people in need of help, this means every week you are going to need guest stars for the series regulars to work with… well “Hostages” had two very notable guest stars.
David McCallum (The Great Escape) plays Castile, the head of a group of terrorists who have been hired to kidnap a United States Senator and his party guests. Castile’s plan is to hold them hostage and use them to force the United States and other governments around the globe to release imprisoned terrorists.
The one time James Bond, George Lazenby (Never Too Young To Die) plays a spy (go figure) named Mallory. Mallory not only has had some run ins with Castile in the past, but with John Peter McAllister as well. 2/2
#3- Did Max Keller get the girl?
It felt like The Master was doing their best to make Timothy Van Patten’s Max Keller into a leading man, like Knight Rider had in David Hasselhoff. Personally I feel Van Patten was better suited as a supporting player, with his work in Zone Troopers as a prime example. But The Master made their decision that Timothy Van Patten was their guy and they stuck with it and one way to make Max their Michael Knight was to make sure Max got the girl.
In “Hostages”, Max saves Alicia (Jennifer Runyon) from certain doom as she finds herself behind the wheel of a sports car with no brakes… fortunately for her, Max sees her as he is flying a microlite and literally swoops in and pulls her out of danger. Next thing you know, Max and McAllister are being invited by Alicia to her father Senator Clayton’s black tie garden party and all three are about to be caught up in the terrorist plot targeting Senator Clayton. 3/3
#4- Were there any obvious stunt doubles?
If you are thinking Lee Van Cleef, who at this point was nearly 60 years old and in the twilight of his career (and as it turned out the twilight of his life), no longer had the physical skills to pull off being a ninja… you would be 100% correct.
Ninjas may be undetectable, but Van Cleef’s stunt double is detectable, all the time and every time. 4/4
#5- Was this a Shô Kosugi episode?
Shô Kosugi may have been in the opening credits, he may have been the stunt coordinator and technical adviser on every episode, but his character Okasa did not appear in each episode.
Fortunately for me, “Hostages” was an episode that featured Okasa… but I don’t believe he was in it for more than 5 minutes. And that fact may be the answer to why The Master didn’t last… there simply was not enough ninja action in a show about ninjas, even though you had the guy that most of the target audience believed actually was a ninja. 5/5
- Final Score = 5/5 (100%) A strong episode of The Master, as it borrowed elements from some of the biggest action adventure series of the time, threw in a little Kosugi and some of the more notable guest stars in the series’ short run.
